Brain Science
Cognitive training apps promise sharper minds. But does the research back it up? We look at the neuroscience and explain what MyRin is - and isn't
Brain training apps have a marketing problem: they promise more than any product can deliver. "Improve your memory in 10 minutes a day." "Scientifically proven to boost IQ." The claims got outrageous enough that the US Federal Trade Commission fined Lumosity $2 million in 2016 for deceptive advertising.
But the backlash overcorrected. Some outlets declared brain training apps completely useless, citing a 2014 Stanford consensus letter signed by 70 neuroscientists. What those headlines missed: the letter criticized specific marketing claims, not the underlying science. The researchers' actual position was more nuanced - and more interesting.
The core question in cognitive training research is transfer: does getting better at a training task make you better at unrelated real-world tasks? This is where the honest answer gets complicated.
Near transfer - improving at tasks similar to the training task - is well established. Practice logic puzzles, get better at logic puzzles. That's not a surprise, and critics who dismiss it as "just learning the game" are making a fair point.
Far transfer - the improvement spilling over into genuinely different cognitive domains - is where the evidence is thinner. A 2019 meta-analysis in Psychological Bulletin found far transfer effects from working memory training were real but modest. A 2022 review in Nature Human Behaviour was more optimistic, finding consistent benefits when training targeted the right cognitive mechanisms.
The critical variable the research keeps surfacing: which cognitive mechanisms the training actually engages. Not all "brain training" is the same. A game built around reaction time trains reaction time. A game built around logical deduction trains logical deduction. The specificity matters enormously.
MyRin's puzzles are built around three cognitive mechanisms that have the strongest research support for transfer:
These are not arbitrary choices. The puzzle design was specifically built around cognitive mechanisms with the best evidence base, not around what produces satisfying completion animations.
Even with the most evidence-backed cognitive training, the honest ceiling is this: regular practice will make you meaningfully better at the types of reasoning the training exercises, and there's reasonable evidence for some spillover into related domains. It will not raise your general intelligence or prevent dementia on its own.
What it will do - and what the research consistently shows - is that cognitively engaging activity maintains and extends the neural pathways involved in that type of thinking. Use it or lose it is not just a metaphor. The brain's plasticity works in both directions.
Treat MyRin the way you'd treat physical exercise: a tool with real, measurable effects that requires consistent use to deliver them. A gym membership you never use improves nothing. Thirty minutes of genuine effort three times a week produces real results.
The 10-minutes-a-day framing that brain training apps love isn't wrong - but it undersells the work involved. The sessions that actually produce cognitive benefit are the ones where you're genuinely challenged, not breezing through easy levels for the dopamine of completion.
The levels in MyRin that make you put the phone down and stare at the ceiling? Those are the ones doing the work.